China Telecom officials told Xinhua another reason for the delay was the dense and overlapping distribution of trans-oceanic telecom lines in the area off Taiwan.

It said damage to its cables would not be fully repaired until January 20 at the earliest.

The ships are trying to repair the lines through a complicated procedure that involves pulling the heavy cables up from the ocean floor.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake snapped several international telecom cables, sparking widespread communications disruption in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere. Knock-on problems occurred as far away as Australia.

Though most Chinese Internet services were largely restored in a matter of days, web-surfing speeds have remained sluggish compared to before the quake.

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